About Us

Cyclopedia is a bicycling program that combines physical activity with collaborative online documentation for the purpose of empowering urban adolescents to become engaged and healthy members of their communities.

The lack of habitual outdoor activity that is often referred to as “nature-deficit disorder” manifests as increasing rates of obesity, behavioral problems, teen pregnancy and other adverse health outcomes; Cyclopedia’s objective is to prevent these problems from happening.

Each ride has an explicitly local theme pertaining to the neighborhoods our riders live in.

This website is the collaborative documentation of all the rides: we post photographs and writing, we map our routes and we combine the information into interactive “ride maps.”

Cyclopedia was started by pediatric residents in the Pediatric Link to the Community (PLC) program at the University of Rochester in 2009. We partnered with the Rochester Boys and Girls Club to launch our inaugural season in 2010. Our first season saw 19 riders accumulating nearly 800 miles and over 70 hours of program time on 14 rides. Our East Harlem program launched in 2012. Hundreds of riders, and thousands of miles, photographs and words later…here we are! Enjoy the ride.